“Music and the Psychedelic Mind” my brutally honest assessment of confusion and realization

September 29, 2013

Written by: Jason Ribadeneyra

Music and the Psychedelic Mind

my brutally honest assessment of confusion and realization.

Another interesting Pitchfork documentary. For what it’s worth.

Good god! Listening to some of these jackasses wax poetic with their pseudo-intellectual takes on drugs influence on creativity, mainly psychedelics, is a bad trip in itself. There are several “smarts” but they’re outnumbered by some serious cliche’ scenesters with sarcasm streaks. I came out of this documentary with a healthy hankering to bother the guy in the vintage suit perched in that big purple chair with a vicious backhand. I started to feel like a 1960’s era square who openly hates all “longhairs” but I quickly realized that I was getting ahead of myself and that my hair is getting pretty long. Please allow me to digress.

My history of drug use is pretty well known and categorized to the “going ’till the wheels fall off” variety so there’s no use trying hide it here. For me there’s always been that brief window within my substance abuse where my creativity is firing on all cylinders and I’m pretty much just along for the ride. It’s wild. Case in point. Most songs of mine that people tell me are their favorites were usually written under the influence of one substance or another, namely opiates. Opiates have always enhanced the emotional aspects of song writing for me. Problem is, is that they’ve also enhanced the getting arrested and going to jail aspects too so it’s an unbalanced trade off. As a teen, when I first started to use psychedelics I would like to sit in the dark and go exploring in my mind like it was a giant cave. I would see objects lit up in the distance and as I approached them they would turn out to be memories that I’d forgotten about and I would just sit there and watch them like little drive-in movies. I know what yr thinkin’ and to that I say whatever. I’m being honest, and as long as I’m telling the unfiltered truth here I should also give you the complete story. I’ve also taken LSD and stared into a mirror in paralyzing horror as my face turned dark red. I couldn’t break away until I began to see my mouth open and sharp teeth begin to take shape. That creep show sent me running full bore towards my friends looking desperately for help. Again, there’s that trade off.

If you are one of those people who’ve never tripped yet have an opinion anyways I’d personally like to spike yr almond milk with DMT. It’s so subjective, the experience and how you use it, that it’s almost useless to try to make others understand. But if there is one thing that I do know about the connection between drugs and art is that they’re more likely to destroy than to help create. It’s about balance and that balance is almost non-existent. I’m not even going to attempt to speak on that though because I’m incapable of ever finding it. So were Syd Barrett, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and Elliott Smith to name just a few.

Check this mini doc out and try to keep an open mind about the subject. I don’t expect you to tolerate the many douche bags peppered throughout though. That would be expecting too much.